I'll Show You the Stars Yet
by Cleansed
Summary: "I know you're not Rose." She sniffles quietly. Her vision, now blurry. "I just hope you're even a little bit like her." (directionless fluff)


There's nothing but the ocean out there. It crashes gently up against the sand, and it lulls Beach City to sleep. The sky is a pure indigo, the stars aren't out yet. The town has retired for the evening. Everyone is asleep, thinking, dreaming, hoping. The shops are closed up. The windows all dark. A cool blanket of slumber covers the little hamlet with pleasantries of the mind. Out by the beach, the water fluctuates and flirts with the land. The great stone-carved beauty stands guard over the blue vastness.

But she's not there.

She sits quietly at a dinner table. She wonders why a small corner of the wall before her is drooping, bending over, like it was trying to escape. Sometime ago she got a glass of water, but she doesn't know why she did. It sits there, mocking her. No, not mocking. Inanimate objects can't do that, she reasons. No need to worry about what a glass of earth water might have to say about her. Right?

The house isn't theirs. They're just visiting, blown in from the beach for a small stay. She and Garnet don't know her, but Greg and Amethyst do. Someone by the name of... of what, she thinks. What is her name? It's an odd name, not one she can easily remember. She gives up quickly. Oh well. She guesses she could simply call her the gourd-headed woman. They're only here because Greg had mentioned something about wanting the little human 'to sleep in a home for once.' She wants to chuckle; the thought of one human closer to expiration wanting to focus on providing comfort for one furthest from expiration was, in a way, amusing.

I shouldn't think like that, she scolds herself, it's not what Rose would've thought.

The little dinning room is just enough to be called a rectangle. It's suffocating her. She can't breath here, like at the temple. Where I belong, she laments. The wallpaper is displeasing, at least to her. She slouches over the wooden table, staring at the glass. It's crystal clear, refracting a little shimmer of moonlight. There are little drops of liquid forming along the sides. She takes a slender ivory finger, wipes some of it off, and inspects it lackadaisically. It's cold against the tip, and she finds it odd. Something like this shouldn't catch her off-guard like this. But amazingly, here she is, now, enthralled with a little bit of water. Her thumb instinctually rubs it out of being, and her interest is lost. Her arms fall atop each other, and she rests her head on them. Elsewhere in the house, breaking her thoughts, are the loud nasal growls of a playing-along Amethyst. They drown out Greg's own by a few decibels. Garnet, she's somewhere, but she can't guess. Gems don't sleep. Gems don't dream. Gems certainly don't drink water from glass containers.

She sighs. The night lingers. Things stand still.

Soon, there's a noise. A tiny wailing. Her head springs up, turns and sees. From down a black hallway, she sees a large shuffling figure walk by a doorway at the end of the hall. She hears little mutterings: "Hey, hey now, it's okay, daddy's got ya. Daddy's got ya. Bad dream, lil' buddy? I think I know what you need..." Out from the dark moves a rotund, bearded man with long brown hair in a white wifebeater and striped boxers. Drearily he drags his feet to the kitchen, holding a tiny, pink-swathed bundle. It's crying, weeping. She sees little hands reach and grab for the man's facial hair. Even with the bags beneath his eyes, the man smiles weakly at it. He walks by her, oblivious, but she isn't offended. Her eyes just follow.

The man walks to the kitchen that sits adjacent to the dining room. The little bundle carries on as he opens the fridge slowly, digs around, and produces a little bottle of white substance. He takes the bottle and loudly opens something else. She can't see what it is, but only slightly cranes her neck to try and see. She counts two beeps and then a third that sets off a cacophonous buzzing in the two rooms. A wave of heat blindsides her. She figures it's one of those devices designed to, as humans put it, 'nuke' food. Gems shouldn't be near such machinery, she decides.

The buzzing silences, the searing heat ceases. But the man keeps standing. The bundle quiets a little, but is still making distress calls the best it can. She tilts her head. Why is he just standing there, she wonders. Up from the table, slowly, pushing her chair out, she leaves the dining room and stalks towards him. The little disappointments in the bundle's voice clarify as she closes in. She's disquieted by this, hopes it's nothing serious. She reaches him, and gently flanks him to see what's stopped him.

His eyes are closed, his head a bit low. He's fallen asleep. While standing. She grins smugly. Humans.

As she goes to wake him, something snatches her eye. A tiny face, buried deep in the pink swaddling. Two little eyes watch him with concern. She's impressed something so undeveloped can emote so much. Again, she thinks, humans.

She gently nudges him. "Greg," she whispers. "Greg... Greeeeg... Gr-"

He snorts, and comes alive. "Huh, wuh...!? Uh..." He turns and sees her. "Oh, Pearl! Ohmydays, you... you nearly gave me a heart attack! Hahaha..."

"I... I didn't attack you, Greg." Her voice is solemn, serious.

"Uhh... oh, right. I'll... I'll explain another time. Sorry, I was just getting the night owl here a drink. Vidalia says he should start sleeping regularly soon."

"This is... _normal_ behavior?" Why am I humoring him, she thinks.

"I... I think? I'm not entirely sure, but everyone says it is. I remember my dad, him telling me about how I'd keep him and my mom up all the time when I was born," he says, chuckling. "Apparently I was a loud baby. Heheh..."

She just nods. She sees the bundle, but she doesn't see it as such. She now just sees the baby inside it. Something pangs in her gut.

He breaks the silence. "Wanna hold him?"

She snaps out of whatever trance, and looks at him. He seems to have noticed her watching the baby. "Hold him?"

"Yeah, you know, hold him."

She freezes up a little, hands up in nervous dismissal. "I-I-I don't know about that. I mean, I've never held a baby before-"

"Pearl?"

"-let alone a human baby-"

"Pearl."

"and besides, wh-what if I hurt-"

"Pearl...!"

"Eh... er, yes?"

"It's okay. Actually, I think he'd like it. Look...!"

They look down, and the baby is looking back. They hadn't noticed that this little thing had stopped whining. Those two little eyes twitched, inspecting it's father's face. She watches him intently. She saw how alive it was. How it seemed so... _aware_ of everything.

Then, it looks at _her_. Her head coils back in surprise. She feels its eyes bore soul-bearing holes into her. She doesn't know how to react. How could she?

"Uh... Pearl?" His voice rips her out of another trance. She shakes her head then looks to him. He smiles. "You can take him if you want."

Slowly, hesitantly, she puts her hands out. He turns to face her, and he gently maneuvers the child into her care. She replicates the arm positions that he held it with, and allows the baby to settle in her own arms. It coos, makes little bubbles in its mouth. She can only stare.

"He'll doze off eventually. You just have to give him a moment or two."

She rocks him a little, like she'd seen Rose do with a baby doll once. She recalled the sadness and the joy in her eyes. She just sat on the beach with him, cradling the little toy. She tries to mimic the memory, but somehow, she knows she lacked the warmth. That wondrous warmth, impossible for a gem of her status...

A light snoring broke her thought. He's fallen asleep standing again. She nudges him a little bit. He snorts awake, she nods towards the hall, and he grins sheepishly. They leave the kitchen together, but she goes for the living room, he the bedroom. She knows of a place to sit where she can be comfortable, and yet stay still enough not to hurt the baby.

There was a chair, a "recliner" as she'd hear it be called, that faced away from the window. She curls up in it, holding the baby carefully. She initially sits forward, but turns sideways to dangle her legs off of one of the armrests. She leans the small of her back against the opposing armrest. Somehow, it feels alright.

She looks at it. The little thing, wrapped in pink fleece. It's eyes are wide and inquisitive. Brimming with early yet intense life. She looks sadly at it.

"I'm sorry. From what I gather, humans as young as yourself can't understand language this complex." A terrible start, she berates herself. The child merely looks on.

She looks up at the window. A few pinpoints of light are up in the night sky now.

"You know," she starts, not looking away from the window, "you technically belong up there. Not in a bad way, of course. Then again, I don't know how gems would react to you. So soft and corporeal. You'd probably become something of an attraction for morbid curiosity." She sighs. "Oh, my apologies. Maybe this is a discussion for when you're older."

It keeps looking at her. She feels like it's making an attempt, but at what, she has no idea.

"Look, I'm sorry I don't have much to say to a human so young. I rarely have anything to say to any human. Unlike... unlike your mother." She smiles, her heart heavy now. "What a gem she was, your mother. She'd know what to say to you. She probably had so much to say to humans that she never got to. She knew how to... oh, how do you say it, 'crack the shell?' She could have a conversation with anyone, human or gem or what have you. Even if they didn't understand, she'd make them come around just by compassion and enthusiasm alone. It was... incredible. To see her work. And your father, somehow, he won her over the same way. Well, maybe not the _same_ way, but he was passionate. Rose liked that. _Loved _it, even."

She looks down. It's eyes are so wide. Can you understand me, she wondered.

"I wonder if you'd know what to say. Say you were more, ah, developed. What would you say right now?"

No answer.

"Hmm." The disappointment is palpable. "You know, I can't wait to tell you about Rose. And all the adventures we had. Oh, we saw so much up there, among the stars. All those worlds, all those races and people, the friends and the enemies. Homeworld really was the center of it all. Rose and I, we saw it all. We saw the beauty... and the horror." Her face becomes sullen. Her eyes grow distant, and she looks back to the sky in the window. "We saw entire races wiped out. Colonized then ground into nothingness. The destruction of peoples. No matter how far away we were, our hands still had blood on them."

The child coos. She doesn't look.

"Rose... Rose knew it was wrong. But we couldn't do much about it. It was... the nature of her position. And I was there to serve her. Serve her though it all. But she saw the potential in humans. She saw a magic in them, something a gem could never have. I wish she could've taught me, showed me what she saw."

She rests her body against the back rest. The child shifts in her arms, and she adjusts to accommodate.

"And then, we fought. Us, the Crystal Gems, we fought our own kind. Millions of lives lost, and for what? You know I'm not even sure anymore? I-I mean, Rose was the heart of it all. And now she's gone. And we're stuck here. On a rock. A rock that hasn't even been around for that long. A rock that... won't be around for very long..."

She thinks about the planets she'd seen come and go. When she was on Homeworld, she could take a single look to the sky, and see a planet. Next time she'd look, it'd be gone. How many planets did she watch come and go like drops of rain? She can't imagine.

"I wonder if you'll see beyond this sky. I hope you do. Maybe you'll... you'll help one of those planets. Save it from some kind of horrible evil. Maybe you'll save more than one. If there really is any of Rose still in you, I'm sure you will. Rose would've. Rose would've destroyed herself trying to save one more planet. If she ever got the chance to see one more."

She looks to the baby. It's looking at her, with those big eyes. But they aren't the analyzing eyes from earlier. These eyes, they seem to know they're looking at _her_. That's when something changes in her. It's no longer a thing, she realizes. This is a human. A baby boy.

"Steven..."

The word hangs on her tongue before finally fluttering into the dark air around her. It no longer feels so weird.

"I hope you can hear me, Steven. I want to tell you so much. But there'll be other times for that."

He seems to smile just a little at her. Something in her begins to feel warm, cozy.

"I know you're not Rose." She sniffles quietly. Her vision, now blurry. "I just hope you're even a little bit like her."

Suddenly, she knows what to say.

"I hope you... are like her. I hope you have compassion, and a noble heart. I hope you find the beauty Rose saw in this place, and that you show us too. I hope we can teach you everything we know. I hope we can prepare you for everything, impossible as that might seem. And... I hope you never have to fight. I hope you never have to hurt or kill like we did. I hope you're better than us. Better than me."

She can't stop crying. She doesn't know where any of this is coming from... but it feels too right to stop now.

"I... I promise you, Steven. I promise you that I'll do my best. Garnet, she'll always do her best, and Amethyst... well, she'll be the sibling you never had. But... I can't promise that I'll be what you need of me. I can only hope that I am. But I promise that I'll try. I'll keep you safe, we all will. And... and when the time is right, I'll tell you. I'll tell you everything. And then you'll know why I hope you become better than me. I hope you never kill like I did, no matter how worth it it was. I hope you can teach us peace. I hope we can show you the universe beyond this small town."

She brings him in closer to her bosom. He smiles again. She weeps as she holds him.

"My little Steven. I hope you'll know how much we all love you. Your father, he loves you. Garnet and Amethyst, they love you. Your mother, she loves you, wherever she may be inside you. And... I love you. You'll never be alone. You'll... never be... alone..."

Something pink flashes in her mind, and she looks to the sky. The stars... oh, the stars! They've all come out. They dazzle against the black, and she shudders with joy. The tears stream down her face, and she feels a great happiness envelop her. She holds him close, and she cries. She cries for him. She cries for the past. She cries for _her_. She takes her hand, and grasps the back of the chair, claws at it. She agonizes, her sobs quiet but powerful. She feels the warmth take hold, and the stars shine a cosmic beauty.

The child has fallen asleep. The smile, it's still there. As she calms down, her hand caresses his little cheek. There's a smiles amidst her tears, and she kisses his forehead lovingly. Her voice, though weak, whispers:

"I promise, Steven. I'll show you the stars yet..."


End file.
